


A perfect world (hollow inside)

by DarkShadeless



Series: The way you kiss me [1]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Legends: The Old Republic (Video Game)
Genre: :P, Awkward Flirting, Denial, Jedi brain weasels, M/M, Mention of (past) Mind Control, Pining, Raan isn't always the perfect Jedi he tries to be, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, cage fighting, man this river is massive, that might have been a good idea, then again they could have sent him to get some therapy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-11
Updated: 2019-10-11
Packaged: 2020-12-09 09:33:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,777
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20992604
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DarkShadeless/pseuds/DarkShadeless
Summary: Raan is fine. He’s fine. He can’t afford not to be. That’s what he tells himself but in the dead of the night, in the quiet of their ship that used to be so comforting, used to be home, the memories come to haunt him.





	A perfect world (hollow inside)

**Author's Note:**

> I haven't posted a lot about Raan but I had this lying around so...  
(This is set after he became the Hero of Thyton but before he ever managed to (temporarily) kill Vitiate)

Raan is fine. He is fine. He can’t afford not to be. That’s what he tells himself but in the dead of the night, in the quiet of their ship that used to be so comforting, used to be _home_, the memories come to haunt him.

Night-time sees him wandering whatever planet they are on, slipping away from his friends and their concern, their pity. They are only trying to help but with every carefully worded question about how he is doing the pressure in Raan’s chest only grows.

Why? Because the truth is unbearable. He can’t tell them. What would he even say?

_I swear I can still feel him. _

_Every time I close my eyes I’m afraid I’ll wake up and shaking him off will have been a dream._

_The Dark is still there, it didn’t leave and it wants to swallow me whole._

_Sometimes I’m not sure if it’s worth resisting anymore. _

_I’m so tired._

All of it true and Raan can never tell _anyone_. It’s killing him.

He’s going mad by inches and he doesn’t know how to stop it. They have noticed that something is off, of course they have, but they tiptoe around it. Do they have any idea how bad it really is?

Scourge might. The Sith has kept his distance, watching him from the shadows. Raan can feel his gaze whenever they are in a room together. Assessing. Is he waiting for him to Fall?

It’s telling that Raan isn’t even offended by that. He has lost sight of just how close to the brink he is. It could be around the corner, tomorrow, today, and he couldn’t tell.

Still he fights it. Tries to hold on. It has to get better, doesn’t it?

_Once you touch the Dark Side, it will dominate your destiny forever._

He prays the old lessons aren’t true. The night gives him no answer.

It’s months before he finds something that helps. Months of wandering the ship like a ghost, faking serenity and good humor for the people he loves most, so they don’t have to see what’s underneath. He’s so brittle a strong wind might shake him apart.

Maybe that’s how it draws him in, the Darkness festering in his core leaking out. Like calling to like.

They are on Tatooine. The nights are cold here but Raan welcomes it. That the nightsky is one of the most beautiful he has seen doesn’t hurt either. He can almost pretend he came out here to see that, not for other reasons.

Almost.

He wanders the streets, half an eye on would-be muggers brave enough to take on a Jedi, when he hears it. A riotous clash of noise. Laughter. For some reason it pulls at him, compels him to seek a different path than he had planned on.

Further down the street the door to one of the larger domed buildings stands ajar.

_A cantina?_

If it is it hasn’t been part of any pointers they’ve received at the port. Despite that it is full to bursting. Maybe a watering hole only for locals?

No. That’s not it and Raan realizes the reason this place would be kept from a Jedi just as soon as he has managed to squeeze himself inside.

It’s a cantina alright but there are no neon lights, no pounding music or scantily clad dancers. Instead the stage in the middle of the room is taken up by a cage.

As that sinks in, a body is flung against the barrier almost in front of Raan’s face. He flinches.

The Rodian tries to get up again and fails. The jeering of the crowd is deafening.

“And OUT! Lorka’s down for the count!”

Under grumbling people start to settle their bets.

Raan retreats and tells himself he isn’t fleeing.

When he can’t sleep the next night it isn’t because the Emperor is a too-real creature hovering in his thoughts. Raan closes his eyes and he is _there_. In the gritty cantina, staring at a beaten-down body.

He resists for two days before he goes back.

It’s violent. It’s terrible and merciless, raw in a way fighting with a lightsaber isn't. Lightsaber combat is elegant. Even in the tactical holos of the most brutal of Sith there is a certain finesse to the forms that can’t be denied.

This is different.

It speaks to something inside of Raan he has long buried. Even before the Emperor, before that fateful day, there had been parts of himself he kept under careful lock and key. His species were predators, once upon a time. The thrill of the hunt isn't foreign to him.

His teachers at the Temple taught him to rise above that, to acknowledge his urges and then put them aside. This had been one of them. Raan had almost forgotten it was there.

Is this what it feels like, when he doesn't let it go?

It _is_ a thrill, much as he’s trying to deny it, a thrill that somehow soothes the jagged edges in his mind he keeps rubbing himself raw on. It keeps him coming back, again and again. He wakes with the phantom smell of blood in his nose.

When they leave for their next mission it’s almost unbearable.

He learns to look for it, for the heady mix of excitement and bloodlust that permeates these places. He can’t stay away. Something about seeing it, _feeling_ it in the Force, makes his head go quiet. The terrible pressure in his chest eases, a little.

But it isn’t enough, not for long.

Before the month is out he steps into the cage the first time.

It’s like nothing he has ever done. There are no rules, no guidelines, no hesitation. He loses that first fight, no matter that he’s Force sensitive, and the next and the next. Raan spends more time nursing bruises and cracked bones than anyone should.

_For the brief time between the door rattling closed behind him and the moment it ends, there is nothing but the fight._

If his friends notice that their medbay stores dwindle more quickly than before they say nothing.

Raan knows he should stop. He can’t. Some days the knowledge that he will be able to let go, to not cling to his control if only for an hour, is all that’s keeping him together.

That’s how they meet, in the end. History will tell it differently but this is it: A run-down cantina in the seediest space port he could talk his friends into docking at. Raan looks across the ring at his opponent, his heart jumping into his throat at the sight of amber eyes glowing in the dim light.

His fur stands on edge.

Naturally, he had known Force sensitives were allowed into the circuit. Not in all places but many. Somehow that had never connected to the possibility of finding himself facing off against a Sith one day.

Raan doesn’t remember much of it, later. He thinks he might have lost it, a little. Had a flashback maybe. He knows he fought like a feral nexu because that’s the night he makes a name for himself, for all that he loses miserably.

He knows the Sith brought him down, in the end, shoving him into the floor until the announcer taps him out. Raan remembers _that_, the raw panic of being trapped by the enemy.

He comes back to himself curled up in a corner, shaking like a leaf. Around him the crowd is still going strong, egging on whomever is in the ring.

His opponent is still there. Now that Raan’s paying attention he can feel him. His Darkness.

He doesn’t want to look up, doesn’t want to face this, but he’s a Jedi and Jedi don’t run from their problems. (Then what is he doing here?)

The Sith sits against the wall, an elbow resting on his bent knee. The casual pose is betrayed by his watchful eyes. There’s are almost two feet between them.

Neither of them says anything. After a while the human turns away, offers him a bottle of _something_ without trying to see his reaction.

It hits Raan, then. _He knows_.

He knows, he knows what Raan is and what he does, everything he’s been trying to hide and it- it doesn’t matter does it? Here’s someone who knows and it doesn’t matter.

He takes the bottle, stares at it unseeing. That’s when the flood comes, when it finally catches up to him. All the things he has been shoving far away, hidden so even he won’t find them, rise their ugly head and crawl up his throat to spill out in a sob. He buries his face in his arms and, for the first time since they descended into the Emperor’s domain, he weeps.

Raan cries until his insides feel scraped raw. Until there’s nothing left.

Until he’s empty but so much lighter.

They meet again and not by accident, much as Raan would like to claim that. The crowd they're both a part of isn't that exclusive.

It’s a loose connection, made up of casual remarks. They share run-ins that can be taken for coincidence and untraceable notes sent like an afterthought.

_I might be on Nal Hutta in three months._

_Quesh doesn’t suck completely around the turn of the year._

_The sunset on Bespin is a sight. You should come by sometime._

They don’t speak much, at first. Raan doesn’t ask for a last name and doesn’t give his. It’s not necessary. In the same look that tells him ‘_I know why you are here_’ he sees ‘_and I’ve got my own reasons to be here, too_’.

There is no need for more.

It becomes about that. The sneaking out, the lying, the fights, it all starts to revolve around this connection that they share. Much as he loves his friends they don’t understand and Raan can’t explain it to them. He still can’t speak of it. But there is someone who doesn’t need to hear and he only feels how he needs that, that he was _drowning_ without it, when they meet and for a few hours he can breathe again.

He needs the release of the fight, too, has to get rid of the nervous energy and give his… his pent-up aggression and helplessness an outlet but it starts to pale in comparison.

He’s getting better. Raan can go weeks without it now, doesn’t crave it like he used to, to the point of self-destruction. He… no longer needs to punish himself.

He can admit that that is what he was doing. He’s still doing it, some days.

He thinks Yon sees it too. Sometimes, when he distracts him from that long enough for the urge to fade away, Raan couldn’t be more grateful.

They are slated for an underground championship on Nar Shaddaa when the Sith leans in close and says, “How about we blow this joint?”

A shiver races down Raan’s spine. It’s not unpleasant. He shoves the bastard anyway. “And go where?”

“We’ll think of something. Come on!”

They steal away into the night like younglings out after curfew. Raan can’t hold in the delight that is bubbling inside him and he doesn’t want to. It feels good to laugh. Freeing.

That it makes a grin break out over his friend’s face doesn’t hurt, either. He looks good like this. Happy.

_Am I happy?_

Raan pushes the question away. It’s too close to what he is trying not to think of. This shining night will end, as they all do, and they will both go back to their lives.

But not yet.

They end up on a bar crawl that is more bent to mocking the décor than getting smashed, trying to find the worst beverage on the menu they can still get the other to taste. He finds out that his Sith can drink actual sludge without a twitch if it will make Raan try it for himself, too. Yon’s Sabbacc face is entirely unfair.

The restlessness that had chased him out of bed is still humming under his skin but he doesn’t want this to be over, doesn’t want to paint the night in blood, he wants-

Raan catches those glowing eyes giving him a slow, considering look. He doesn’t know what he wants.

He has no chance to decide whether that is a lie or not. The Sith pulls him along with a wicked smile, out onto the floor where the music is so loud it’s fit to shake you apart. Raan has no idea what he’s doing.

It should be awkward.

It isn’t. Little ever is, between them. What makes it so is hesitation, so he pushes past it, lets himself fall into this and be caught. Whatever ‘this’ is.

It’s like fighting, only not. Movement and exertion, the heat of the moment. His friend spins him around and pulls him close, as natural as breathing. He can feel Yon laugh.

He's so _physical_. So grounded. When Raan allows himself to feel the man, his presence seems to bend the space around him with the gravity of a small planet, pushing people away, pulling them in.

There's no question which of the two it is when it comes to him.

He's drifting closer, always closer to that heat under the surface. It could burn him but it won’t. Raan doesn’t have to be Force sensitive to know that that is true.

He wraps his arms around his friend’s neck, is hugged close in return, a purr rising in his chest. His heart his racing. The alcohol must be going to his head. That’s all.

_I’m such a bloody coward._

If he said- if he asked- if he _wanted_, what would change? Why would it have to change anything at all?

_Because I want more. _

That truth settles heavily into Raan’s stomach. It isn’t new or surprising, just something he hid away from view.

His friend must feel the change in mood. Yon slows down, pets his back, careful not to stroke the fur against the grain. Not many people think to watch for that, if they don’t have any themselves. The fact that he does makes Raan’s heart give a funny little twist. He glances up at the golden eyes that used to unsettle him so much. If you know how to read him, there is patience there. Maybe even care. Worry. He can’t tell. The light’s too dim.

_That’s what he tells himself, at least._

Before Raan can gather his courage and finally _say something_ his friend grows still. His attention fixes on a point in the crowd and his expression closes up in a way Raan has never seen before.

From one moment to the next he’s someone else.

Yon parks him at the bar. As he waits Raan can’t help but steal glances at the twi’lek girl that has, apparently, come to find him. They’re talking in low tones. She looks unhappy to be there. Finally, his friend’s shoulders rise and fall in a hint of resignation.

Raan knows what he will say before he has even turned around. “I’m sorry, I have to go. Rain check?”

It hurts but they knew this was coming. Not so soon, there was so much that might have happened tonight… but it wouldn’t. Time to move on. Raan takes a breath and lets it go. He reaches out, hesitantly, to twine their fingers together. “Next time?”

A small smile flickers across the Sith’s face. “Next time.”

He disappears into the night, as if he has never been there, leaving Raan to stare after him.

This part is always the worst. Saying goodbye. Who knows when they will meet each other again? If they will at all? They’re at war. Any number of things could happen. He might never see him again. He wouldn’t even know why, if that was how it went.

He doesn’t know how long it is before he realizes he isn’t alone anymore. He turns away from the dancers and there is Scourge, posture rigid as ever. He, too, is looking out over the crowd.

Raan’s heart skips a beat. Neither of them says a word.

After a long moment the Sith clears his throat. “There has been a development.” He looks everywhere but at the Jedi at his side. “I volunteered to look for you.”

‘_So none of your subordinates would see what you are up to_’ goes unsaid. Raan hears it nevertheless. He takes the implied ‘_because I already knew_’ and puts it away. That… he’ll deal with that later. Or never. Never sounds good.


End file.
